You just have to understand that this recording is not truly a soundboard. There was no soundboard. What here transpires is a feed from off of the mains that a member of the kwipment krew, or one of the other people backstage, understage or offstage who was assigned, or perhaps not assigned the task of plugging in a two track reel-to-reel or cassette tape recorder into the direct feed. The band adjusted the sound on stage themselves and this, what you are hearing, is what they were hearing.

Sometimes they got quickly in synch on it and other times they thrashed around searching for the sound. Usually by the second set they were in synch.

This representation is a particularly well stage-mixed effort.

Much of the playing and singing is flawless.

Many of the songs (too numerous to describe) are all-time keepers.

All of the previous reviewers of this concert have aptly stated its merits. I am merely commenting as a fan who was privileged enough to attend many Wall of Sound shows. I still don't believe there was anything like it.

I am an admirer of Mayer sound and his P.A. inventions I am aware of the fact that Furthur and other jam band groups, as well as many concert halls employ his systems, but he cannot deny that the W.O.S was superlative.

And I am happy to report that he doesn't. He acknowledges that he cannot duplicate the sound that you now hear. The bellweather in all of this is the clarity of the vocals. No P.A. System has ever duplicated such clarity.

Now I know many of you don't give a shit about the clarity of vocals, or even care about vocals -- you just want to hear Jerry's guitar solos , but the clarity of the vocals is the key to overall P.A. fulfillment.

This recording is the fulfillment of many a forgotten dream of people whom the Grateful Dead's music makes sing.

Agreed, the 10:33 instrument in Dark Star is a saw. I've heard it called "singing saw" before. you can bow it and bring a string across it like used with a violin, or shake/flex it and get this sound instead. The Gans was stumped! Amazing!

Thanks Charlie for the great work: where'd you find Around x 2? Let's dig up 4 more songs after Playin!
To the previous poster, Chris U. Pigpen passed away on March 8, 1973, just after the Champaign show(s).

My friend Smokingcrateretc's review below is impossible to top in certain respects, but that won't stop me from making a few completely subjective comments

First and foremost, we must bear in mind that this show was performed (and recorded!) less than one week from the 2-15-73 show in Dane County ... and this Illinois show is vastly inferior overall ... but not all bad.

This is the Dead after the Europe 72 3LP is released, where they spread their musical balls on the table. Pigpen is dead. The Wall of Sound is growing. 'Eyes of the World' has been written.

That said, what is most interesting to me about this show is how uninteresting it is compared to other shows from this time period. It's not that the band isn't into playing but there is no forward progress here. It is a Dead show. Cool. It could be worse. But it could be a whole lot better. Like a week earlier, in Dane County.

Vibratory passions dancing amid Jerry's guitar... I can't say much. The porous sound flows, each minute slowing enough to ripple and give a fleeting glimpse of all it is as change- the dynamics of an ever-changing universe. Brahman's hand thrust forth through nature touching each soul with a hand of light we are shining as... can I feel what is sound, hear what is seen? My senses are delusions, the sound is deceit. I'm removed from myself when I here such passion coming through... because beauty has no form. Here its shaping. Seven voices become one, and then truth comes forth in its silent voice. Here the day, the Dead. The music of eternity. It lasts as long as this song (Dark Star). The wave ebbs... It returns. All these transitive passions... they are holistic, they come together, greater than they could have been in all their moments. The Dead have raised high, and transcended, all form; they utilized the unvirse's dynamics in the way of all radiance- through a medium through which all is, is the abounding sounds of a joyous venture from which the sweetness of a flowing soul can run free. Yet Dark Star is omnipresent also, vacant yet inhabiatble. They return to this form quite often... I here it again and again. The ghost of truth is haunting. Look beyond the Dead, see that beauty from which they shone. See the people you are among, and the day radiant from their faces. The dynamics of an ever-chanching universe are terpischorean. Your movements are its dance. All are as one- swift, united, harmonizing beauty to send it forth into eternal day. Can you hear the Dead shine upon this? This form is no ghost, though just as transitive. The emboidemnt they fulfill in '73 is bliss-inducing transcendence, arising from the form of truth to shine its musical rays dancing in a thousnad ways as one. Like us :). Beauty, together in a thousnad movements and single dance greater than those thousand movements through which it is. The day, the week; the eternal. The child, the adult; the beauty forever among them. The Phil Lesh bass, the Bob Weir guitar; the voice of one great truth, arising from the songs they produce. Here it comes as it goes; perhaps this epitomizes not just '73, but the truth of all beauty- the holism of all beauty, the voice of one truth speaking through all. I feel it; its vibratory. Its a thousand rays upon a single lotus, and harmony shows that beauty is one

This show is a gem i stumbled on it while looking for something else but i took a look at the set-list i said hmmmmmm interesting and proceeded to listen while searching for a long lost show but i digress this show is great it must have been a real treat for the good folks of Illinois that night in 73 it's got just about everything a dead head would want in a show and a special kudos to mr Miller for the work he put in makin it sound great too!